| In the Ground He Goes group 3 |
| About five o' clock our procession of three cars reached
the cemetery and stopped in a thick drizzle beside the
gate-- first a
motor hearse, horribly black and wet, then Mr., Gatz and the minister
and I in the limousine, and, a little later, four of five servants and
the postman from West Egg in Gatsby's station wagon, all wet to the
skin. As we started through the gate into the cemetery I heard a
car stop and the sound of someone splashing after us over the soggy
ground, I looked around, It was the man with owl-eyed
glasses whom I had found marveling over Gatsby's books in the library
three months before.
I'd never seen him since then, I don't know how he knew about the funeral or even his name, The rain poured down his thick glasses and he took them off and wiped them to see the protecting canvas unrolled from Gatsby's grave. I tried to think about Gatsby then for a moment but he was already too far away and I could only remember, without resentment, that Daisy hadn't sent a message or a flower, Dimly I heard someone murmur "Blessed are the dead that the rain falls on," and then the owl-eyed man said "Amen to that," in a brave voice. We straggled down quickly through the rain to the cars. Owl Eyes spoke to me by the gate. "I couldn't get to the house," he remarked. "Neither could anybody else." "Go on!" He started. "Why, my God! They used to go there by the hundreds," He took of his glasses and wiped them outside and in. "The poor son-of-a-bitch," he said. |